A tiled image refers to the process of duplicating a single, small image many times on a computer display screen in order to create a composite, background picture on the display. This creates the impression of a large, singular background without necessitating taking up extra storage space in memory to store the entire background. This background is sometimes called "wallpaper", which takes its name from an analogy to the familiar wallpaper in the home, where the decorator carefully hangs individual strips of wallpaper to make the pattern match across the borders and to form the illusion of a singular pattern.
Just like home decorators would like the images on their wallpaper to match across the borders of the wallpaper strips to hide the seams, creators of tiled images on a display screen would also like the images to match across the borders of the tiles. Unfortunately, these seamless, tiled images can be very difficult to make. Current image editors do not have features that allow artists to easily match up the edges, so artists can spend many hours attempting to create an image that matches on the borders, so that when it is tiled, the seam cannot be seen. An image with perfectly seamless edges requires either a very common and easy pattern on the edges, such as a solid color, or potentially hours of tedious trial and error to get the images on adjacent tiles to match up. Current image editors feature tools and effects--for example, brushes, smudging, shapes, and warps--, which cannot be used across edges because the effect is stopped by the borders of the singular image. This prevents a smooth transition across the border, which is needed to make a seamless tiling.
Thus, there is a need for an image editor that provides that capability to quickly and easily edit an image, so that when the image is tiled the image will match across the borders.